1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of remote data collection, and in particular concerns a system for documenting the occurrence or nonexistence of hazardous conditions at a particular location accessible to occupants at a particular time, as well as the time of correction of such conditions, according to an automated procedure whereby the recorded data can later be substantiated as accurate.
2. Prior Art
Businesses such as supermarkets, malls, department stores and the like that are open to the public, must maintain safe premises for their customers according to a standard of reasonable care. In addition to their interest in maintaining clean and attractive premises to draw in customers, such businesses are interested in the accountability of their employees for correcting any unsafe conditions, in minimizing any dangers to customers and others, and in the costs related to general liability claims, lawsuits, and insurance premiums.
A common source of customer injuries and resulting claims and lawsuits affecting businesses is slips and falls. Some businesses undertake regular periodic walk-around inspection tours according to a schedule to detect "slip-fall" hazards such as wet spills and the like, as well as to identify areas requiring maintenance or custodial attention due to other spillage, leakage, damage such as collapsed displays or other factors. These floor safety inspection tours are advantageously documented to ensure that they are accomplished and also to record any maintenance needs or hazards that are discovered. Typically, a manual paper-based logging system is employed. An employee is assigned to perform safety inspections and makes handwritten entries that note the date and time of each inspection tour, and whether any slip-fall hazards or other requirements were found. Such a log can also note when a spill is cleaned up or a maintenance hazard corrected, and the responsible employee's name and initials.
Manual logging procedures are useful but have weaknesses. Manual logs are readily fabricated or altered after the fact. For example, an employee assigned to perform regular floor safety inspections may have other pressing concerns when an inspection is due. It is easy for the employee to make an entry indicating that an inspection tour was accomplished at a particular time. That entry can be made either contemporaneously without performing the inspection tour, or later. It is difficult and labor-intensive for management to monitor whether inspections are actually being accomplished and to audit the accuracy of manually generated paperwork. As a result, such manual logs lack credibility. The logs are not useful to demonstrate convincingly that a business took reasonable precautions to prevent customer slip-fall injuries, or to provide evidence that a particular hazard either existed or had been corrected at any given time. Entries in such logs may be cryptic or illegible. It may be difficult even to identify the employee who ostensibly performed the inspection tour. These difficulties are aggravated as time passes, and make logs useless as a source of defensive information should a customer claim to have been injured by a hazard that could or should have been discovered, or perhaps never existed at all.
Systems have been proposed for ensuring or at least improving confidence that inspection tours of a building have been regularly and properly accomplished, typically requiring the inspector to operate a recording or signalling device at stations along an inspection route using a key. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,781,845--Ellul provides a system for verifying that security guards have visited each location along an inspection route. The guard carries a key card having magnetizable rods. The guard proceeds to checking stations spaced along the route and inserts the magnetizable-rod key card into a box at each station. The boxes contain code defining magnets which may or may not affect the magnetization of the bars in the card. When the round is completed the guard inserts the card into a reporting station where the magnetization of the bars is checked. If each station has been visited, the reporting station sends a signal to a central recording station to indicate completion of the security round. If any stations were missed, no signal is sent to the recording station and the guard is told so. This system effectively monitors whether all the security stations were visited but does not provide a means for logging and reporting information regarding the round, such as security violations that may be encountered at particular times and places.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,298,725--Fischer discloses a security management system that utilizes bar codes to document inspections made by security officers at various areas being inspected. Hand-held data scanners, data transmitters, a personal computer and non-copiable bar code labels. One of the features of the system is its ability to generate tamper proof reports showing the date, time and location of an inspection, and the identity of the inspecting officer. The system employs an incident sheet of bar codes that identify particular security violations.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,572,192--Berube discloses a personal security system that includes features for monitoring guard tours and other surveillance by security personnel. The system includes a plurality of hand-portable radio frequency transmitters, a plurality of fixed transponders at security stations and a control station. The transmitters are used by security personnel to report their positions on guard tours. Each transmitter sends a unique identification code. The receivers monitor the protected area for transmissions, and in combination with the transponders and control station, record the time, transmitter identification and receiver location. At the end of the day, the control station prints a report. While Berube's system discloses generation of a report documenting the identity of the guard making a tour and the time at which each security point was visited, it does not provide a means to report and record the particulars of any unsafe or insecure situations found along the tour route.
In general, remote reporting as described above involves an automated but internal system for recording locations and times. Whereas such internal reporting builds a list under the control of the security organization involved, there is no guarantee that the list has not been altered. As a result, the list is not useful as a mechanism to provide evidence suggesting that, inasmuch as a guard has been proven to have visited a given location at a given time, and preferably reported on security conditions at that location, that security conditions at that time were indeed as reported.